special education testing

Many people assume that special education teachers refer children for special education testing. This is an incorrect assumption. For the most part, special education teachers work only with those students who have been assigned to them. In fact, in some school districts, special education teachers are prohibited from working with any student who has not specifically been assigned to the special education program or to them directly. In a world filled with lawsuits, it is understandable that school districts feel the need to protect themselves from litigation, but if those people who are trained to work with and identify special needs are not recommending testing, who is?

Typically, the first person to notice a possible learning problem is going to be the person that spends the most time with the student in a learning environment, the classroom teacher. [continue reading…]